Jim Ingraham: Last star standing looks like next to go

After two years of nearly non-stop roster demolition, there isn't much left, except a vacant lot, some smoldering rubble ... and Grady Sizemore.

He's the crystal chandelier hanging over a pile of shattered dreams and broken bricks.

The last star standing.

But for how long?

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The barren tundra that now passes for the Indians' roster landscape has never been bleaker since the rookie season of the Tribe's glamour-boy center fielder in 2004. Once the teammate of Cy Young winners CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee, and All-Star catcher Victor Martinez, Sizemore, when he reports to training camp in Goodyear, Ariz., later this month, will get acquainted with his newest teammates, Hector Ambriz, Mitch Talbot and Saul Rivera.

The Indians, in case you have been visiting Jupiter, are rebuilding. Sizemore is built. Sizemore is a championship-caliber center fielder and leadoff hitter.

Despite coming off an injury-plagued 2009 season that resulted in career lows in most offensive categories and not one but two season-ending surgeries (elbow, groin), Sizemore is 27 and moving into what should be the prime years of his career.

Put those two factors together, and it means that the clock has already started ticking down toward Sizemore's final game as a member of the Indians. He says he hasn't thought about any potential exit strategy from Cleveland, but he doesn't have to.

That's General Manager Mark Shapiro's job.

These are the facts:

Given their tattered pitching staff, and lack of financial resources to improve it, the Indians, who lost 97 games last year, with a Cy Young Award winner on the team for half the season, may struggle to avoid losing 100 this year.

Sizemore's contract expires after the 2011 season. He will make $5.6 million this year and $7.5 million next year. There is an option for 2012 for $10.5 million, which Sizemore can decline and thereby declare his free agency.

In other words, the Indians have control of Sizemore for just this year and next year. That's the exact same scenario that applied to Lee a year ago at this time. And five months later, the Indians traded Lee to Philadelphia.

The Indians may be facing the same scenario with Sizemore this year. Clearly, Sizemore is going to become a free agent before the Indians get good again.

The Indians, like most teams, almost never are able to re-sign their players once they become free agents, or are within a year of free agency.

To this point in Sizemore's career, the Indians can't be accused of trying to low-ball him. In March of 2006 they signed him to a six-year, $23.45 million deal, the largest contract in history for a player with fewer than two years of major-league service time.

What will Sizemore's next contract be worth? Probably more than $50 million and less than $100 million. More, certainly, than the Indians will be equipped, or willing to pay. So the question becomes not if, but when will the Indians trade Sizemore for a package of prospects not unlike the one he was a part of when he came to Cleveland in the Bartolo Colon trade eight years ago?

"Hopefully there is a long future for me here," said Sizemore. "I've always enjoyed being a Cleveland Indian, and hopefully I can be here a long time and spend many more years here."

Sabathia and Lee said the same thing. But the closer each player got to free agency, coupled with two consecutive disappointing seasons by the Indians, led to midseason trades of both of them.

"It's been tough. The last couple years a lot of my close friends and teammates were traded or moved on," said Sizemore. "But I feel good about a lot of the young guys we've gotten back. This gives us a chance to start over."

The problem with that is Sizemore's career is no longer in synch with many of the young, inexperienced players on the roster. Sizemore is a finished product, ready to help a team win a division and reach the postseason.

The Indians, as a team, are not built to win. Not this year, anyway. (Hector Ambriz?).

Still, Sizemore remains the good soldier.

"I think we've made some good moves (during the offseason)," he said of the Indians, whose only free-agent addition to the major-league roster is a backup catcher.

"None of the moves scream headlines," he said, "but some of these young guys have talent. I like where we're at."

Although not a rah-rah guy verbally, Sizemore admits he's going to try to be more of a leader this year. He says he's put behind him the embarrassment of the stolen racy photos of himself that wound up on the Internet. And he says the rehab from his two offseason surgeries has gone well.

Hale and hearty again, Sizemore is beckoned by a new season, a new challenge, a new optimism.